


Good Things Can Happen After 2am

by Stennerd



Series: Buddie Week 2020 [4]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Buddie Week 2020 (9-1-1 TV), Eddie flirts with Buck, Evan "Buck" Buckley and Eddie Diaz Being Idiots, Feelings Realization, Hen and Chim have a bet, Idiots in Love, M/M, Oblivious Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Oblivious Evan "Buck" Buckley, mutual flirting, not quite so one-sided flirting, they be dorks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:28:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26624446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stennerd/pseuds/Stennerd
Summary: Day 4: Buddie + “Are you flirting with me?” “You finally noticed?” + love - Eddie has been flirting with Buck for some time, what he doesn't realise is that Buck has been doing the same, neither of them have picked up on this fact, maybe its time that they do.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: Buddie Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931380
Comments: 8
Kudos: 224





	Good Things Can Happen After 2am

Eddie knows about Buck’s reputation. That he had this uncanny ability to both intentionally and unintentionally flirt no matter who the person was, he just had that natural charisma that people were drawn to.

The fact that he knows this makes Buck’s apparent obliviousness to his attempts at flirting so exasperating. How many hints must he drop that for the man to figure it out? It’s gotten to the point that Hen and Chim had started a betting pool over how long it will take for Buck to figure it out.

Thankfully, it all came to a head one evening in the loft during a quiet spell. Somehow the topic fell to the best flirting techniques and Eddie has his suspicions that Chim steered it in that direction on purpose.

“So, Eddie, what would you say are your go-to flirting techniques?” Asks Hen as he returns from the kitchen with a bottle of water for himself and tosses one to Buck who catches it without looking.

He thinks for a moment as he settles back in the armchair, “Uh, I don’t know,” he eventually ends up saying eyes landing briefly on Buck before looking away taking a swig from his bottle.

“I doubt that,” says Chim with a smirk, “come on Eddie, what do you do or say when you’re flirting with someone?”

Rolling his eyes at Chim, he adjusts his position in the chair. “I’d probably position myself in a way we’d just happen to be close enough to brush shoulders without it being obvious.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Buck had leaned forward, losing interest in his phone as he tunes into the conversation.

“I don’t know if this is considered flirting, but I’d learn about their interests and listen and ask questions whenever they start talking about them.” He sees Buck frown and he goes on listing his last ‘technique’ “And I’ll tease them, just to get a laugh or a smile out of them.”

Eddie takes another drink of his water, eyes sliding back over to Buck but before anything else could be said they were interrupted by the alarm. He laughs at both Hen and Chim who groan at the interruption, looking as though they were hoping for some revelations to happen.

Even with the team knowing and having the bet in place, he’s not in a hurry to make his feelings overtly known to Buck, happy to let the man pick up what he’s putting down. But now that Buck was now aware of how he flirts he wonders how long it will take for him to piece it together.

He just didn’t think that it would happen at the end of this call.

They were just packing up from the job and Buck was talking about his latest discovery that in Australia there was a war in the ’30s between the Australian military and emus known as the Great Emu War.

“… wait so you’re telling me that they had not one but two attempts at stopping these birds and they still lost?” he asks Buck in faux-skepticism to try to get a rise out him, “That makes no sense.”

“What?!” Buck exclaims incredulously with a light laugh and a smile on his face, “Why would I make something like this up? The military tried and failed to cut down the emu population because the birds were too fast and too smart.”

“Yeah,” he clicks his tongue and smirks at Buck, “You keep telling me these _'facts'_ , but this seems too far-fetched for me to believe you.”

He knocks shoulder with Buck’s playfully and moves to open the door the back of the rig gesturing for Buck to get in. He watches in amusement as Buck frowns as he moves towards the step to get inside as if he was trying to puzzle something out when he stops short with one foot on the step, realisation dawning on his face as turns back on Eddie.

“Are you flirting with me?” he asks wide-eyed.

Eddie leans against the door, feeling a sense of satisfaction over Buck’s realisation, “You finally noticed?” he asks smoothly.

Buck nods slowly, with a coy smile playing on his lips, “and here I thought that you weren’t picking up that _I_ was flirting with _you_.”

And then he was gone, disappearing into the back of the rig with no further comment. Taken by surprise, it takes Eddie a moment to process what Buck just admitted.

“Wait… what??” He managed to utter and follows him inside intent on an explanation.

Before he has the chance to follow it up, Bobby joins them in a rush stating they were called to a multiple unit incident and from then there was just no time for it. They shared a look, one that promised that when they had the chance they would pick up where they left off.

Unluckily for them, they never got that opportunity until well after the time that their shift was supposed to have ended. The last call was one that left them all dead on their feet, stomachs grumbling almost continuously having given them no time to have any kind to time to eat since lunchtime.

Eddie felt completely spent with no energy left to get out of the rig after it was parked back at the station and he could tell that Buck was in a similar position. Eventually, Buck was the first to make a move to get out and he gets halfway out the door before turning back to extend a hand to him.

Giving Buck a tired grin, Eddie grasps Buck’s hand allowing Buck to pull him to his feet with a groan as they both amble out of the truck, bodies aching after such a labour intensive call. They walk in companionable silence as they make their way to the locker room, practically leaning against each other.

“Hey, Eds,”

Eddie hums in response, putting most of his focus on changing out of his uniform, deciding to forgo the usual post-shift shower to wash away any sweat and grime, seeing in his peripherals Buck doing the same.

“You hungry?”

Eddie barely considers the question as he feels his stomach growl in answer, “I could eat.”

“Cool, I know of this amazing 24-hour burger joint,” Buck responds, stuffing his unform into his duffle bag. 

Collecting their things, they start heading to their cars when Eddie suddenly remembers their brief flirtatious exchange earlier that afternoon and stops short, causing Buck to pause and look at him quizzically.

“You okay there Eds?”

Eddie squints at Buck for a second, trying to gauge what Buck was intending, “Are you asking me out on a date Buck?”

A look of confusion crosses Buck’s face before it morphs into one of realisation, clearly having also temporarily forgotten their moment from earlier that day as well.

“Oh, um, yeah I suppose I am.” He eventually ends up saying, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Ok good, just making sure.” Eddie says easily, not wanting to make a big deal out of this development, “I’ll follow you, yeah?”

And that where it all began, in a small quiet burger diner at two o'clock in the morning, laughing over the fact that they had both been flirting with each other for some time and neither of them had picked up on it.

You would think having spent so much time with each other normally, they would run out of thing to talk about, but they didn’t need to talk the whole time, just enjoying each other’s presence and basking in the euphoria of knowing that the feeling that they have for each other was mutual, no longer as one-sided as they originally thought.

They sat there for hours, tired but invigorated by each other’s presence with neither of them wanting the moment to end. Eventually, though, they reached a point where they could no longer ignore the fact they were in desperate need of both a shower and sleep.

So, with contented smiles, they part ways sharing a look that promised many more dates to come, which coincidentally involved the diner more often than not.

Their first kiss actually ended up happening at their diner, in the most natural of ways that they almost didn’t realise it was their first. Until they did, in the parking lot, their second kiss as charged as a first kiss you'd see in a cheesy rom-com resulted from their awareness of their love for each other, leaving them breathless.

Yeah, that diner became their haven, their go-to place when they couldn’t think of anywhere else because it held as much romance in their eyes as any other restaurant would, and considering what they have now, Eddie wouldn’t change a thing. 


End file.
